Simplifying An Industry

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go from just talking about your why to actually helping you discover and live your why. And so you know, if you've been a listener, that every week we talk about a particular why, and then I bring on a guest that has that why. And this week we're going to be talking about the why of simplify. And this is one of the very rare whys. There's only 5.5% of the population that has this why. Now, these are people that want to take complex things and just simplify them down to their most basic form. Because when things are simple, then people can understand it. Then everyone can understand it, and everyone can use it. So they make things easier to understand and easier to do by simplifying things. They might say something like, you know, don't tell me all that. Just tell me the most important point, or just narrow it down or that's too much stuff. What are the facts? Keep it simple. They're direct. They're to the point. They're just the basics. They're typically minimalists, and they just want to keep it simple. Right. So today, my guest, I met John, and my guest is John Crowder. I met him about a month ago when I was doing a workshop in Alexandria, Virginia with Chris Smith. If you remember, Chris is the Navy SEAL that has the CrossFit gym. And so we were doing a workshop, and John is a good friend of Chris's, and he was in the audience. And afterwards, we got a chance to go to lunch and I got to know John. And so John is the owner of Bradham Automotive. Now, he took this over from his father back in 2011 when it was really starting to fail, when they were just about ready to declare bankruptcy. And he took it over and revived the business, and he's going to talk about that today. And for the past five years, they've been ranked in the top 25 best shops in North America by the Automotive Training Institute. He took it from almost bankruptcy to 2.5 million. And so we're going to get a chance to talk with John today. Welcome to the podcast, John.

Hey, thank you for having me.

Well, I'm glad we're getting a handle of all these technical issues. And now we can finally have a conversation. So. So let's start with your automotive repair shop. Tell us about it. What was going on with it before you took over and then kind of, what have you done to make it better?

So my family purchased Bradham Automotive in 1969. The business has been around since 1948. And my dad basically inherited the model that the original owner had created, which worked well, you know, up until about the mid-80s. And if your listeners can kind of think back to those vehicles that were on the road, you know, back in the 80s, you know, 70s and 60s, you know, they weren't so reliable. You know, there was always kind of something wrong with them. Tune ups, you know, every 10,000 miles. So lots of times that you had to take your car into the shop. And that was kind of what the business model was set up as. You know, it says high volume, low, you know, and low sales, low margin. Well, as technology changed, as the industry changed, as computers were brought in, you know, cars became extremely reliable. You know, even now we look at most vehicles on the road, really have like a tune up time where you actually change spark plugs out at like 100,000 miles. So what it did was it basically decreased what we were looking at car count wise per day back then, you know, about say 90 cars to really looking at, like when I took over, we were doing about 13 cars a day. That's a huge difference. And if you're not prepared and know what you need to do, you know, and you still run the same model, you're going to fail. And that's ultimately kind of what happened. And he, I think, really got frustrated with not knowing what he needed to do to change it, to make it work. And ultimately just kind of walked away and said, I, you know, I just, it's yours now. You, you, you have it, you fix it.

Well, you know, to your point there, John, I remember back, you know, in college I had a Volkswagen Bug and, and I always joked that it was easy to work on, but man, I was always working on it, or actually my brother was always. Somebody was always working on it because it was constantly broken down. And you know, you open up the hood and you could see the entire engine and what's. What, what's there. But when I look at my current car and I open up the hood, it doesn't even look like an engine. Everything's covered. I can't even figure anything out.

Exactly. Yeah, they're extremely technologically advanced. Yeah, like you said, they put the covers on it. You can't even See anything that looks like an engine? It's just kind of like a big plastic blob that's right in front of you. We tell customers a lot of times when we're trying to let them kind of know about the technology in a vehicle, is the one computer in my vehicle that just controls the door function just for the driver's door. So window rolling up and down, your mirror movement, that kind of stuff is faster and more powerful than any of the computers that were in the space shuttle.

Wow.

So it kind of puts it into perspective for people of like, okay, well, this isn't, you know, this isn't my Volkswagen Beetle that I used to have, you know, this is something totally different.

Yeah. So you guys went from having a whole lot of volume of little things to do to lower volume of, I guess, using the same model, little things to do. So it kind of cuts your income quite a bit.

Exactly. Yeah. So you have to be mindful of the changes. You have to be very mindful of what you're doing now to create, you know, your sales. Yeah.

So when you took it over, it was kind of using the old model with the new vehicles, and it wasn't working.

It was not working? No. What did you do? So, you know, and I get this. I get this question a lot, and not from just people in the industry, but I get it from other industries as well when they kind of find out, you know, what we were able to accomplish. And I say we because it wasn't just me. I have a whole team of people that all contributed to the success of this business. But I look back at it and I changed almost everything. There wasn't anything that I kept that I can think of. I think this really kind of guides us right into the simplify, is that, you know, there's just so much going on in business. Right. There's so many different aspects of a small business. And I think people just get mired down and they just have a hard time moving. And I think you just, if you simplify stuff, you just make it easy that things all of a sudden just start moving and they, you know, and it just really helps. But especially in a scenario like this where, you know, there was so much that needed to be changed from process of procedures, counting software, new equipment, I mean, just retooling. I mean, there was so much that had to be done. I had, in my mind, I had to simplify things or else, you know, I wouldn't have been able to take the first step.

You know, it's interesting John, because that. Your story is very similar to my story as far as my dental practice. Because I too, took over from my dad when he was ready to just kind of hand off and then fade off into the sun. And I inherited a practice that had no systems, no policies, no procedures, just kind of seat of the pants. There's so many people coming in that you don't really have to do anything. Well, because there was another person sitting there waiting to walk in the door right after. But that all changed over time where it went from an abundance of people coming in to just having a few people coming in. And it definitely changes things.

It does. And so, yeah, it's a very similar, similar concept. You know, there was. We had no handbook. We had, like I said, no processes, no procedures. It was literally like my dad going, oh, but they know what I want, they know what I expect. And it's like, I don't think that they do.

Everybody's doing their own thing.

Yeah. Because they're kind of doing their own stuff. You know, if you, if you don't create a process, people are going to create their own. They're going to use past experience, whatever, but they're going to, they're going to create their own process. If you don't lay it down as saying, this is how we do it, you're going to have a little bit of chaos going on there.

So what did you do? Tell it, tell. Everybody's listening, saying, okay, you went from very little to 2.5 million fairly quickly.

Right.

How did you do it?

I would say the most important thing ever is to be sure what you have in your head gets down on paper and gets put into action. That's like the most important thing. So that was kind of one of the very first steps I took, besides just changing the profit models, which, though, you know, which I find extremely easy to do. I mean, it's literally like, you know, you, you want to change your profit, you can do that right now. It doesn't take a week to do. It just takes a minute for you to put into place that process. But everything else, that's what I really kind of, you know, started focusing on, was making sure that, like, everything that we did was taken down and made simple and easy to follow and super efficient. And then it was put down on paper. And none of my processes that I have, you know, I have processes to create processes. So. But none of them are more than one page long. No matter how complex the process or procedure is, it will only be one page long. That is It. And that way employees can look at that and understand exactly what we're trying to accomplish, exactly what I want, and more importantly, what's in it for them. I always start my process with purpose, and that purpose will usually revolve around the employee and letting them know what the benefit of following this process is following for them.

So give us an example. What would be a way that you took something that was not working and simplified it, created a system, created a process, and made it work.

So one of the most important ones was probably just our workflow process. And that's basically how that process from how a work order gets from our service desk to our technician, back to our service desks, back to the technician, and back to the service desk. So we have multiple steps because it has to go from the service desk to the technician. The technician needs to then diagnose the car, do a courtesy check on it, write up anything that needs to be done to it. It has to go back to the service desk to have the estimate created. And then the customer needs to be called, the job sold, all the parts ordered. Then the ticket needs to go back to the technician so that the repairs are actually performed. And then it needs to come back to the service desk so that. That way the service advisor knows that the job is complete and then can contact the customer. And that process is probably one of the most important ones, because if it's not, you can lose so much time if it's. If you don't pay attention to it. And one of the most important things to consider in business is that we can't manufacture more time, right? We have a finite amount of time a day in order to get all of our jobs accomplished. And I can't make more time, but if I set up the right processes and the right procedures and they're easy to follow, then we can create efficiency, right? So then that way we, you know, we can use our time more wisely than just jumping around and just doing things three or four times that don't need to be done. And that was. That was a big one for us because you're dealing with employees that have probably worked and, you know, three, four, maybe five other businesses before. And if you don't have something, you know, that they can follow and they're actually, you know, told they need to follow, they're just going to do whatever they want to do. They're going to go. They're going to go, oh, I did it this way at my last job. So I just do it that way, you know, and nobody's on the same page. And. And it just becomes so chaotic and so inefficient. Simplifying stuff and just making it easy and going, guys, this is how we should do this. It's so much easier than how we're doing this now. So that's probably a big one that really sat down, and I took some time with that one. And what I did, too, was to really engage the technicians and engage the service personnel. When we created that. Right. I wanted them to be a part of that because, you know, the best way to get people to follow any process is buy in. So when they're bought in, when they feel like they've got some skin in the game and they had some creative input into how that process worked, you know, they're more apt to follow it. And they also, I think it, you know, it created a way better process.

So it sounds like what you did is you took all these. All the stuff that everybody was doing, many going in many different directions, and you just aligned it and focused it and got everybody going in the same direction so they could help each other and streamline the process, take less time and be more profitable.

That's it. Exactly.

And so you have a lot of. Do you have a lot of processes and procedures in your shop?

I do. I feel like I have a process for almost everything that happens from where the cars get parked to the cleaning process. I have a process for resupplying the customer lounge and where the products should be purchased from, how much we should have on hand free.

And so what has been the benefits other than just monetarily? Because monetarily, obviously, it's been huge.

Right.

Why did those processes help you become more profitable?

I think, you know, obviously it made us more efficient. Right. But I also think that's like. It gives your employees a look into what your vision is. They can see more about, like, what your vision and what your direction for the business is on so many levels because it goes so deep. And I think, you know, we talk about it a lot and we try to create culture and stuff, and there's a lot of things that you can do to do it. But, you know, when they get, like, a very intimate look at, like, what you truly want this to be, and it starts to make sense to them, it just becomes a better business.

And now how did that lead to more revenue?

I'll just give you one example of a technology that we use that makes everything super efficient. So we do a courtesy inspection on every vehicle that comes in. I'll talk about two technologies. So the courtesy check is done on every vehicle. Included in that courtesy check is an alignment check. So went and we researched alignment machines. What do we want to get? You know, we want to get something that's, like, amazingly awesome, technology wise. And I was like, I need something that's efficient and fast and simple. And we ended up going with a Hunter Hawkeye machine. And this machine is incredible. In like 90 seconds or less, one of my technicians can pull it up onto the lift and tell you if it needs an alignment and what is out. That is an amazing thing to have. Yeah. So right there, within 90 seconds, I know, hey, you need an alignment. You don't need an alignment. They take the vehicle back to their bay and they do this full courtesy check. The courtesy check is done on an iPad. It's really great technology, and you can create your own. So what I did was created courtesy check tailor made for our business so you could take away all kind of like the. The stuff that was, you know, super detailed that we didn't necessarily need. Because my thing is, you know, I want to make it simple. So I only want to have, like, so many lines that they're actually clicking off on. I don't want to have these, you know, pages and pages. If there's something wrong, guys, what I want you to do then is to add any text that we need, you know, about what's wrong and taking a picture of it, and that goes into the courtesy check. So where some shops might go, oh, no, we want it super detailed. I'm like, no, I think that takes too much time. You know, I want to have, like, hey, front end. Okay. Yeah, I don't want to have. Is the lower ball joint. Okay. You know, is the upper ball joint. Okay, now go to the left side is, you know, like, you can. I just want to say, hey, if it is, then you can make a notation of it. But utilizing this program, we can take pictures of stuff. So that's a great way of, like, making the sales process that much easier. Because now when we submit that email with that full courtesy check that has pictures, it has all the notations, descriptions to the customer, they can see it. Right. So now it's not so much of, you know, a sales problem. Yeah, right. They can see it. They can. They go, oh, yeah, I can see what you're talking about. So just like those technologies of, like, saving time, but also giving that customer more benefit from coming to us. Right.

So you know what it sounds like to me from an outside perspective is You've simplified the sales process so that it's understandable to me, because if I don't understand it and I don't see it and it's not quick and easy to understand, I got enough stuff going on in my life. I'm not going to spend the time to try to figure out your language.

Yeah, I mean, think about, think about that phone call. Right? You can't see it. Right. So they're just calling you. Right. You. So you don't have that technology, and they're calling you and they're saying, well, hey, Gary, you know, technician took a look at your car, and you need an airbag control module. And you need, you know, you're kind of like, well, you know, it's got a bad driver in it, and that's actually causing the malfunction that you're, that you're experiencing. At what point are you just gonna glaze over and just be like, I don't know what these components are. I don't know what. I just know a light came on my dash, John. I just want you to fix it. You know, could you just do that for me? You know, this is a big problem in my industry is that, you know, people want to. I think they want to really show people how smart they are. Right. So you'll, you'll trust me, you know, as, as, as a service advisor, if I talk these big words? Because then you'll know that I know what I'm talking about. Yes. And that's not the case. Right. Like people. Yeah, right. They're going, I don't know what you're talking about. So the easiest word for me to say in this situation is no about it. Yeah, right. Because you're confused or you don't understand. And it's like, you know, when, when somebody's confused or don't understand, I can promise you the one word they don't say is okay.

Yeah.

You know, so what I want to do is make sure that we're really talking to people. Make sure that, like, we're talking in a way that they can understand. And sometimes you can't. And sometimes you say, you know, there's really not a great way describing how the system works. I'll do the best I can. I think when you, when you, when you approach it that way, though, I think people can relate to that, because in there, I'm sure there's a lot of things that people do in their jobs. I'm sure there's things that you would tell me about dentistry. They'd be like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, my tooth hurts. Just. Can you fix it?

Exactly.

Yep.

I just want to be out of pain.

Right.

I remember when we were having lunch and you mentioned something about, I just want people to bring their car to me and have one stop and I'll show them what's going on, but I'm going to get it all fixed. Or something along those lines where you just made it really easy. Something about making it easy for me.

Yeah. I just want. I want you to have the one place that you can come to and just, hey, we're your place. We can do whatever you need done. And I mean, we'll do things. So like a warranty claim or something like that, you know, we'll have customers come in and they're like, oh, man, this is. We'll find out that's covered under warranty. We'll take the car to the dealer for them. You know, I just want. I just want things to be easy. I want them to. When they ever have a problem, I just want them to think of us. You know, I have lots of customers that get broken windshields. You know, there are a lot of highways around this area, you know, rocks getting thrown up. You know, we don't do windshields, but I have a guy that comes to our shop and does them, you know, right there. So that's. So it's. Try to make it just so simple and easy for them.

Yes. So what have you found over time about making things simple and easy for people?

It works.

It really works. I wish more people did think like me, though.

Yeah.

So that's the thing.

There's only 5.5% of the population that think like you think. So you're lucky that you've been able to be in the position you are where you got to use it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, like, learning your why and you start to. You start to see things like, oh, wow. Like, it seems so, like, apparent that, you know, we would just know the stuff about ourselves. But, yeah, it's kind of incredible. And it's definitely one of those things that, you know, I look at and go, man, I don't. I must have learned over the years how to not get super frustrated with people because they don't think like me.

Yeah.

I must have found a way to work around that. It doesn't always work.

But, you know, when I'm working with, let's say you were in a workshop or working with a company, and for those of you on the call that are listening to the podcast that haven't been in a workshop with me. What I do is I take the whole organization through discovering their why, how, and what, and we'll create at a certain point the Y matrix and a Y directory. And the Y directory basically has. Everybody has the nine whys, and then who you have for each of those nine whys. And so it becomes very apparent when what somebody would be good at, where you should put them, how to put the right person in the right place. But what's interesting about the why of simplify is that typically those people are fairly quiet and they just listen and then. But when you ask them a question. So what do you think? If it was John, I'd say, so what do you think John? And John would very easily and very quickly just take the entire day's conversation and break it down to, like, one sentence. Yeah, well, I think what you guys are trying to say is blank. And we'll go, yeah, that is what we've been trying to say for the last three hours. And they simplify it so quickly and so fast. And then we often wonder, well, why the heck didn't we just start with John instead of going through all the stuff that we went through? But it's amazing how quickly and easily you can take something that's complex and then simplify it down.

Yeah, it's like, to me, it just makes sense. And I do find myself that I do get upset. Right.

Like that people want to do when things are complex. Somebody sends you a lot of complex stuff.

Yeah, I'm just like, ah, you know, I'm just like, trying to speed, read through stuff or whatever. Just like cut through it. People trying to tell me something, try to describe something or, you know, like, so I'll get technicians at the shop and they're trying to relay information to me because they're having difficulty figuring out a problem with the car. And I'm just like, okay, go, come on, come on, let's go. Just, just, you know, what, what's, just, what's this PID number? You know? Well, I really want to talk. I don't have time for that. Just, just, just give me the information that I'm asking for, you know, and it's. I can get a little bit direct and a little bit probably obnoxious about that.

Yeah.

But I just, in my mind, it's like I flicked the switch of like, we're gonna fix this and we're gonna, we're gonna make it easy. So just give me What I need, not this other stuff, I just don't need it.

And that's where it's really valuable for your team to know your why. Because if they don't know your why, they can attach different meaning to it.

I think they attach a lot of emotion to it. Right. I'm like, why has he got to be like this? You know, like I just want, you know, and especially like if they're like a clarified person, right, where they just want to be heard and they want to make sure that you understand it clearly of like what they're trying to, trying to tell you and like no, I don't work that way.

Or mastery. Yeah. So it's, they're almost exact opposites. Mastery and simplify because mastery takes the simple and makes it complex and simplified takes the complex and makes it simple. So a mastery person's giving you all the detail and all the stuff ad nauseam and you're like, wait a second, I don't want all that. Just hit me with the bottom line here.

Uh huh. Yeah.

And so that's where it's really critical for your team to know that about you. And I don't know if you've, if you've even talked about the why with your team yet, but I haven't yet.

No, but we are, we're definitely going to talk about it, that's for sure.

Because it, it gives them a sense of, it'll relax them quite a bit. You'll be able to, they and you will be able to smile about the things that they might get frustrated with you about and you might get frustrated with them about because they don't understand it. Right. John's just a, you know, he can be an asshole or whatever. They, whatever it's. And once they realize that it's. Wait a second, all he wants is the facts. So let me just give him the facts and he'll be happy, then they're okay.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

It's an amazingly powerful tool, you know, knowing about yourself, knowing like, you know what, you know, what drives you. And then, and actually like you said, to know what you're, you know, what drives your team. You know, I started doing personality testing when I took over. Now it doesn't go into the why, but it definitely gives you some more information about how people work. You know, I think for me the why is a more simple, more efficient, more easy way. Because I think a lot of times like personality tests, you know, cpp, you know, whether it's Wonderlic or you know, one of the other ones, you know, it's so complex. It's giving me so much information that I don't need that information. You know, we're just working together. You know, we're not getting married, so I don't need to know all this. I think the why is perfect for, you know, a small business or even a large business.

So the way the why, just, just for. As a quick aside for the listeners, when I was interviewing people and helping them discover their why, and I started to notice the same why's coming up, which is where the nine whys came from. What I did was use the words that people would tell me. So, for example, if you would keep saying, well, it's got to be simple, it's got to be easy. If I didn't use the words that you use, then you wouldn't resonate with it. Right. You would say, well, you know, it's kind of what I said, but not really what I said.

Right.

And that's where all of the languaging and all the why wise came from, was using those exact words. And that's what makes it easy for you to understand, because that's what you would say.

Yeah, it's exactly what I would say. Right.

It's not what you would say that I interpreted and changed into my version of what you would say. It's exactly what you would say.

Right.

And that's why you can relate to it. And one of our mutual friends, Janae, she said something to me that was really powerful, and she said, the more we get to learn about ourselves, the more we get to learn about others. And I found that really powerful to think about because just like you were, you know, we're talking about with, with your team, the more you now know about yourself, the more you now want to know about the people that work with you, and the more they are going to want to know about you.

Right. Well, I think that. I think the thing that's interesting about the learning your why is now you start looking at your friends or loved ones or colleagues and you start going, I wonder what they are like.

You.

Know, because if I knew, it sure would make this a lot more simple.

Yeah, but you're like going, I bet, I bet she's clarify. I BETCHA, you know, 50 bucks says exactly.

So you're, you've got this. You've taken an automotive repair shop, simplified all the processes down to what makes sense and what make the job easier, not only for you and your team, but also for your clients. And what has that allowed you to then do, as far as the business.

Is concerned, to really step away, let the business run itself, which to most.

Of us is freaking amazing. I mean, to most of us, that's what we want. That's our ideal. It's like, how do I create this so that I don't have to do everything? And it sounds like that's what you've done.

That's what I did.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I just. I really think it's like, if you simplify things down, you know, and it's not overly complex, you're not needed there. Right. Everybody knows their job. Right. Because you just made things so easy to follow that you just.

Yeah.

They just don't meet you. Yeah.

It frees you up. Right?

It does, completely. Right. You, you know, you stop getting questions, you stop, you know, getting phone calls. You stop. I mean, just every. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you still have to have the right people. Right. And I think knowing your why and knowing other people's whys can help you construct and build a great team. But, you know, as long as you have your good team and you. And you have your processes in place and everything is simple for everyone. Yeah. It affords you that ability to step away and kind of explore other avenues.

And I know you're doing that. What other things are you now getting involved in?

The first thing I did, I did a yoga teacher training that was kind of cool with an organization called the Toga that basically brings yoga and meditation to active duty military veterans and first responders. So that's been. It's been really great. I teach Sundays every other Sunday at Trident CrossFit, owned by our friends Chris and Andrea. Been teaching for one of the Fairfax county fire stations. So that's been amazing. I decided to go back to school and work on finishing my degree. I left. I went to the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, and was there for three years and left because I was put on academic probation. Wasn't a great student. You know, I look back and go, you know, I'm taking these classes now and I've got. I've received nothing lower than an A in all the classes I've taken. And I'm like, was it this easy back then or was it, you know, I was like, I think it was just me.

I don't know if it's an age thing or, you know, a focus, but. So, yeah, going back to school and working on finishing my degree.

What's your degree gonna be in?

Business administration. Yeah, right. It's been kind of interesting is you Know, I've been able to. It's an. Online courses is what I'm doing right now. Back at the Citadel. They have their business apartment online. But it's really interesting because you get to do weekly discussions with your other classmates. And it's really interesting to hopefully be able to give them some good information that they can utilize, you know, moving forward. You know, I have class I'm taking right now that has a lot of sophomores in it, and it's just really interesting, like their, like their goals and their visions and, you know, if I can. If I can help them achieve some of that stuff or if I can give them some sort of tidbit of information or some sort of guidance or whatever that they can take on through, you know, their whole, like, business life, that'd be great. And I think it's a really good platform for hopefully helping some people out.

And you're doing some other things right. Aren't you racing?

Yeah. So I started.

Yeah, I've always wanted to. My uncle actually raced Trans Am racing back in the late 60s when trans am first started, and he stopped racing when my cousins were born. And it's kind of like one of those things I've always been really interested in, really passionate about. And I just. When I, you know, had this free time, I was like, well, I'm gonna go to a racing school and did that. And one of the instructors, Tim Rose, great guy, incredible driver. He's like, hey, you know, we are doing a race series. You know, I think you should really give it a shot. And I was like, well, let's be honest, you know, like, this was a lot of fun, but do you think that I could actually be competitive? He told me, he's like, you won't come in last. How's that sound? I was like, okay, well, that's encouraging. I won't be the worst. So, yeah, I went. I went and started doing some racing. And, you know, so far I've gotten three podium finishes.

Wow.

Yeah. One first place and two third places. So it's exciting. I'm looking now to see like, what. What the, you know, what the next race series I'm going to do is. And that's, you know, it's like I kind of want to move up and do something, you know, kind of next level, but, you know, that's. That's next level cost, so I gotta make the right decision there.

I can imagine that everywhere you go, you take what's there and you make it simpler.

You know, it's funny, you Know, when you talk about the racing part of it, that's what I really wanted to do. I like, I looked at it and went, okay, there's ways to be fast, right? But probably the best way to be fast is to be like, super accurate, right? So like break it down and just be, you know, and putting the track together turn by turn by turn and just making sure that every single time I did it, it was exactly the same. Right. Like, don't overthink it. Just make it super simple. It's like, you know, your breaking points, like your turn, you know, your turn ins, your apexes, you know, and that's how I looked at it. You know, it's just do that. Be super efficient.

It really is fascinating the power of simplicity.

It is, it's. And it's crazy that it actually inundates your life so much. And you know, since I, since we did this, you know, did the. Why, it's funny that I look at things now and I'm like, well, that totally makes sense. You know, I, you know, I live in, I live in a super modern house, you know, that has very minimal amounts of furniture. And the furniture that is here is very like, simplistic. You know, it all performs a task. If it doesn't perform a task, it has no place here in my house. And I never really thought deeply about it. I just thought that's just what I like. Now I'm looking at like, well, I'm simplify. It totally makes sense.

It's funny because when you know somebody's. Why you can, you can just tell how they're. What their life is all about, because it shows up everywhere. It's not just what you do at work, it's what you do everywhere you go.

Right.

Just how you think and where you have found success and you continue to find success there.

Yeah.

So, you know, if your day. Now that I, you know, I know you have time on your hands, which seems ridiculous to some of us, that you could have taken a automotive repair business with 10 employees and created it to where you can walk away and still be very profitable. You could do that for anybody, I'm assuming.

I would hope so.

You probably already do.

Yeah, well, I mean, I try to do. Do my part and, and helping out.

Other shop owners as well as any business. Right.

Yeah. So, yeah, I usually ask a lot of questions, you know, when I, When I'm talking to friends that own businesses and our mutual friends Chris and Andrea that, you know, perfect example. They're, you know, doing their new coffee shop and, you know, I asked him, I was like, you know, what do you guys need? I'm here to help you. You know, like, you want to create some processes, procedures. You know, so far all I got the okay for was to. To build some shelving in the basement. But, you know, it was, it was with Chris and he's a better way guy. So I tell you, if you want to rip through a project, get a better way and a simplified guy working together, and it's like magic. I mean, I think we just.

After he listens to this podcast, he's going to want you to help him with every aspect of what they do over there.

Well, I'm always happy to help, that's for sure.

So if you had a company now that you've got all this free time, if you had a business where you could help other business owners like me and like everybody else is probably listening to this, simplify their business so that it becomes more effective, more efficient, more profitable, and they can actually walk away from it, would that be something you would have passion for?

Definitely, yeah.

And you could probably do that for any business, right?

You know, I think I could. I mean, I think it's just a matter of listening and just understanding the challenges that they're having, seen the opportunities, and just kind of putting a plan together.

I think I was telling you last week, I was in Seattle and I. And I met this gal who is responsible now for bring. She works for Amazon and she's responsible for bringing Whole Foods to the Amazon world and simplifying all the processes and lowering costs and lowering the food prices and all that kind of stuff. And her why is simplify as well. And I think that's something you would be good at as well.

Yeah, I mean, I would love to sit down and talk with her.

When I interview her.

Yeah. Because I'd love to hear about, you know, kind of like the challenges that. That she faces in this, you know, because merging those two businesses together, you know, you know, one does one thing one way, the other way and finding that best way and simple way to merge the two. He's super interesting.

Yes. Well, so, John, if there's people that are listening to this and they say, you know what? I'd love to pick John's brain. I'd love to have him maybe come help us simplify what we're doing, whether that is a automotive repair shop or any kind of business, how can people get ahold of you?

The best way, I would say, is probably just email me. It's john.crowderahoo.com C R O W D E R Send me an email, you know, maybe title it, you know, simplify. That way I know what, you know, what it's about. But I'd love to hear if there's a way I could help. Because it's always like, for me, one of the cool parts of the process of simplifying is, you know, the challenge of how do we do it? So, you know, I'd be interested in trying to help. I'm not sure, you know, be able to. I hope I could, but I'd be interested in definitely trying, that's for sure.

Yeah. I can't imagine you wouldn't be able to. It's what you've done your entire life.

Yeah.

Just what you do. Right. I mean, there is no other way for you.

No, there really isn't.

Yes. So that's what's great about knowing someone's why is because, you know, that thing that they've always been good at, you know, that thing that they've always been recognized for.

Yeah.

And that's yours, even. You know, I'm looking at your picture right now, and there you are standing in a T shirt, jeans. That's about it.

That's. That's how I roll.

Usually the same exact kind of pair of shoes. Pair of navy blue Chuck Taylor's. That's usually like, have you seen me? I promise you I'll probably be in those.

Keep it very simple. Yep.

It's funny because you are the epitome of the way that I describe the simplify, because it's. It's that exact thing. Just a couple things to wear. Keeps it very easy. You don't have to make any decisions about it. Why make it complicated?

Yeah.

Gonna get dressed.

The funny thing I think about that is, though, is when you look at it, I've got closets full of clothes that I just never wear. I just go, yeah, no, I'll just go with what I normally wear.

That's great, John. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. Thanks for giving us more depth into the why of simplify. Because like I said, it's very rare and wish there were more of you to help make the world easier for the rest of us. But until then, at least we got you.

Hey. And I'm here to help, so thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been. It's been a great time.

Well, have a great day, John. Thanks.

You too. Take care.